Some context on the veto override

Posted at 9:17 AM on February 25, 2008 by Tom Scheck (2 Comments)

The Minnesota House is expected to attempt to override Governor Pawlenty's veto of a $6.6 billion transportation bill. A study by the U of M's Center for Study of Politics and Governance shows how rare it is to override a governor. Here are the highlights:

-Overriding a governor’s veto is very difficult. 97% of all vetoes have stood.

-A successful override of Governor Pawlenty’s transportation veto would be only the 14th time that the legislature has successfully overridden one of the 447 vetoes by Minnesota governors since 1939.

-Only two governors in the past 70 years have vetoed as many bills as Governor Pawlenty. (Arne Carlson and Jesse Ventura).

One other note: A third of all attempts to override the governor's veto and 69% of all successful overrides occurred during Jesse Ventura's term as governor.

The House is where the action is. They need 90 votes to get to the magical two thirds needed to override.

The Minnesota Senate is a slam dunk since DFLers have enough votes to override and two Republicans also support the bill.

UPDATE:
There's more info here from the Legislative Reference Library.

Comments (2)

At a time when normat citizens are trying to keep up with everything rising past what they can afford, the good chuckleheads of our state government have just driven a few more of them to S. Dakota. I certainly hope the names of our elected representitives who voted for this travesty will be publicized so we can kick them out of there cushy job next election time and remove any perks they may have stolen. Don't these people have any brains or do they just see a lot of money to spend on some silly railroad, costing billions of dollars, that will connect the Twin Cities to the MOA. Who is getting paid off here? Where are the kick backs, I am sure they are there. The dolts that voted for this are enough to gag a maggot.

Posted by Kenneth Paulson | February 25, 2008 3:51 PM

Mr. Paulson you must be kidding in that post as all I read was a lot of name calling and no solutions. Transportation is vital to Minnesota's economy. Agriculture and recreation are huge industries in this state and both require a lot of infrastructure to occur. Would you prefer if we implemented a toll system like Illinois? Maybe you've never driven through that state and experienced their roadways.

Being that fuel is still amazingly cheap in this country compared to anywhere else you really believe .05 is going to "drive 'em to S. Dakota"?

Hmmmm, Minnesota is in debt, pay interest and hold the loan or pay off the debt...

Anyhow I am all for this bill, if a bridge collapsing isn't enough to prompt action out of "Governor" Pawlenty I don't know what is.

Posted by Brendan LaMagdeleine | February 26, 2008 1:29 PM

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